April 25, 2008

Nature's Trees University comes to Cantitoe Corners

I’ve been entrusting the tree care at all of my properties to the expert arborists at SavATree for many years. I must say that I’ve always been happy with the service they provide. My friend, Ralph Robbins, the founder and vice president of SavATree, asked me if it would be all right to conduct teaching seminars at my farm from time to time, and I, of course, agreed. So the other day, Dane Buell, the director of safety and training, came to my property and taught a class about proper pruning methods to eight SavATree arborists. This was actually part of a seven-day course that they call Nature’s Trees University.

Here’s the group looking very happy.  What a gorgeous day to learn about pruning!
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This is Dane Buell. You might remember Dane from my blog dated January 11, when SavATree came to saw giant tabletops from a fallen sycamore tree. Dane announced that he reads the blog regularly ever since that posting. Thank you Dane!
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Dane is pointing to potential problems with a young hackberry tree. He explained that it’s important to prune regularly to develop a tree’s future structure. In doing so, you can prevent incorrect growth that can really stress a tree as it matures and can also be ultimately hazardous.
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A few snips with a pull-clip pruner and the problems are solved.
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Another topic covered was subordination pruning. When a tree sends up more than one leader at the top, it’s important to prune one back so that there is a dominant central leader. By not doing so, the multiple leaders eventually become heavy and susceptible to splitting. Splitting can be prevented by cabling the branches, but cabling is far costlier than proper pruning.
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